Raw Beet Summer Salad

Raw beets, huh? Those messy red root vegetables don’t really ring your chimes?

Well, read on.  I’m here to convince you to eat them, and eat them raw.  Come on into the world of really red food.  It’s beautiful in here.

Granted, my motivation for eating raw beets came from a place of “needing to eat them.”  Apparently, consuming raw beets helps keep the digestive bile thin and moving in the body.  We produce a quart of bile  — per day — for digestion.  For those of us focusing on the cleaning out and renewal of the liver and gall bladder, this can be an important reason to eat beets.  So I am eating beets.  I had to find a way to eat them regularly and happily.  Here goes.

You need three ingredients.

1. Beets, organic if you can find them or grow them.  If they are organic, you can scrub them and use the skin and all.  Buying loose beets, without the tops is just fine.
2. FRESH flax oil, Barleans is best.  Always check for the date it was pressed.  Buy it if it was pressed within the last month, and buy a size that you can consume in about 2 months.  On the bottle, it will also give you the “use by” date.  If acquiring Omega-3 rich flax oil will deter you from making this simple salad, you can substitute really good olive oil.  It works just fine.
3. Fresh lemons.
4. A hand grater.

Now you’re ready for the fun part.

I may be exaggerating a bit about calling it fun.  Pretend you’re about 5 years old when you make this salad and you’ll be fine….

RAW BEET SALAD

Ingredients:

Beets, scrubbed clean, enough to make two cups of grated beets.

2-3 T. Flax Oil.  If you don’t have Flax Oil you can substitute cold pressed Olive Oil.

1 juicy lemon

 

Trim off the thinnest layer possible of the roughest skin on the top of the beet.  Also cut off the bottom root. Grate two cups of beets by hand, skin and all.   Here’s the weird thing.  If you grate the beets by hand, rather than with a machine (Cuisinart or other mechanized grater), THE SALAD IS SWEETER. Go figure. 

 

I’m here to tell you that the mess is worth the difference in taste.  I don’t know why it is so different, but it is.

 

 

 

To the grated beets, add Flax Oil and the juice of one lemon.  Stir and eat.  You could also add salt and fresh ground pepper, but I find it needs absolutely nothing.

 

How easy is that?  Messy, but easy.

 

Note:  Yes, your hands will be red from the beet juice.  This is the part where you have to pretend you’re five years old.  It’s messy work.  Wear an apron.  Smile a lot.  Recall your finger-painting days.  I always manage to splat red beet juice somewhere that it shouldn’t be…. but, I digress.  To get the red off your hands, wet your hands, sprinkle baking soda on them and rub together.  Rinse. Repeat if necessary.

 

This salad is crunchy, sweet and heavenly.  Surprisingly so.  You can also add grated carrots, daikon radish or other grated vegetables for more variety.   Or fresh chives, basil, thyme, parsley or any fresh herb you like.

 

Enjoy this raw beet salad!  Your liver and gall bladder will thank you.